


of emperors and cinnamon rolls

by ephemeralblossom



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fantasy, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 00:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13601946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralblossom/pseuds/ephemeralblossom
Summary: It was a normal day at the coffeeshop, until the Emperor of Land and Sea walked in.





	of emperors and cinnamon rolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).



It was a normal day at the coffeeshop, and the Honourable Luna Maria Helena Hortense Millicent Vivienne Persimmon Nancy Featherstonehaugh (known since time immemorial as “Polly”) was ridding a particularly sticky table of the aftereffects of an overexuberant toddler wielding a cinnamon roll. Polly might have been the eldest daughter of the Duke of the Windward Isles, but noble blood didn’t exactly pay the bills, especially when said paternal Duke believed that his daughters should be either marrying well or becoming genius scholars, and if a daughter of his was more interested in studding her face with metal and joining a rock band, well, she could jolly well pay her own way while she did it. 

Polly’d never really been a chip off the old aristocratic block, but she did have the famous Featherstonehaugh temper and pride, so she’d refused to quit the band, gone out and got three more eyebrow rings, and started job hunting. The coffeeshop paid enough to keep body and soul together, and that was all Polly needed right now. Eventually she’d make up with her parents – just wait until the band got a few hit songs under its belt, and maybe even old pater would have to recognise that she was pretty good at what she did. 

Anyway, it was a normal day at the coffeeshop, until the Emperor of Land and Sea walked in.

Maybe most people wouldn’t have known it was him. The Emperor was a mysterious figure, shrouded in legend and secluded in ornate splendour in the Palace of the Living Wave. The current Emperor had been crowned at the age of five, and ever since then he’d only been glimpsed by his public at a distance, presiding over the annual Ceremonies of the Tides. And when he was doing that, he was always robed in the most astounding of ceremonial garments, loaded down with more gold than a dragon’s treasure trove. 

Today he was wearing ripped jeans, a t-shirt advertising craft beer, and a raggedy hoodie. 

“ _Lumpy_?” Polly cried, leaving the rest of the cinnamon roll effluent in situ for the time being.

His Imperial Majesty Felix Maximilian Trevor Xenophilius Jessamy Fitzherbert, known by his friends as Fitz and his childhood playmates as Lumpy, did a double-take and nearly fell down. When he recovered, he peered up at her. He’d obviously left his glasses at home. 

“What are you doing here?” Polly asked, belatedly hushing her voice. They were in a back corner, but there was a playwright working around the corner, and playwrights were just the sort of people who might get bored with their latest work of art and decide to start investigating weird occurrences. “Why aren’t you at home?”

“Polly?” Fitz said, sounding bewildered. “What have you done to your eyebrows?”

“Improved them. Where’s your trusty shadow?”

Fitz’s loyal bodyguard, George McGeorge, had been with him for more than a decade. If Fitz was sneaking out of the palace without him, something was seriously up.

Fitz looked guilty. “He’s guarding the meditation chamber.”

Polly blinked. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to go on break, and you’re going to tell me all about it.”

~

Fifteen minutes later, Polly had the gist, and Fitz had whipped cream on his upper lip. Technically he wasn’t supposed to be having sugar – the Emperor was an ascetic monarch, who devoted his waking hours to meditation and serenity, so that his land might always know peace, and sugar wasn’t allowed. But given that Fitz had made a prison break, Polly thought bending the rules a little could be allowed. Plus he was always so much more talkative when you snuck him sugar.

“Let me get this straight,” she said, steepling her fingers under her chin. “You snuck out of the palace because you want to go to space.”

“Just for a _little_ while,” Fitz said, licking a finger clean. “It’s so _boring_ being Emperor. I can buy a berth on a courier ship to Arthshankx before the Council realises I’m missing, and by the time I come back they’ll have realised that I can take care of myself. I have big plans for updating the Emperor’s role for a new century.”

Polly looked at him. Fitz had always been a dreamer. Well, she was too, but fending for herself had given her a practical education in the ways of the world. Fitz … well, Fitz was so used to everyone loving him and giving him whatever he wanted that he probably couldn’t imagine a world in which everything didn’t go according to plan. She sighed.

“All right,” she said. “If you’re determined to do this, I’m not going to let you go alone.”

Fitz grinned. 

Polly didn’t really know why she was doing this. Maybe because Fitz was cute when he smiled, and she’d always had a bit of a crush on him. Maybe because she was bored at the coffee shop. Maybe because she was a thrill seeker, and absconding with the Emperor in tow sounded pretty thrill-seeking to her. 

“Bring some cinnamon rolls,” Fitz said, peremptorily. 

Polly sighed again, but this time she was smiling.

~


End file.
